Team:UIOWA/Public Engagement
Education and Public Engagement
The Voyages of Plasmo, Molecular Defender
It can be difficult to get kids and teens excited for science. Whether it be chemistry, biology, physics or any other class on the physical world, kids just don’t look forward to learning about those topics. Our team sought out to change this perspective. What better way than through an action-packed comic?
Everything in biology relates to one idea; the Central Dogma, as it is often called. Put simply, this is the idea that DNA turns into RNA, and RNA turns into Proteins. This idea is drilled into school-aged individuals from middle school up until college. So we aimed to center our comic around this idea in hope of making it a little less complex, and a lot more exciting.
Two members of our team tackled this project: Kyleakin Helm wrote the script for the comic. She created the story and brought the characters to life. Katherine Amick created the character concepts and began drawing the comic itself. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, the comic was not finished. Because the script is complete, the team hopes to get the comic moving again for next year.
Summary: Plasmo is an up and coming scientist. He wants to be apart of the Synthetic Biology world, but he must first understand the basics to work up to that. He gets shipped to a faraway world to learn about Replication, Transcription, and Translation. He is guided around the world to view all the different components that go into the Central Dogma Process. Along the way he meets a variety of characters (such as Modus: Creator of Phosphodiester Bonds, Clyde: The Director of the Cell and Primasero: The Great Base Pair Salesman), encounters epic battles between the DNA and the RNA world, and learns to fully appreciate how much time and effort is put into the Central Dogma Process.
Iowa State Fair Booth
Iowa State Fair is an annual event with an extensive history in the state of Iowa, dating back to the year 1854 in which the inaugural fair began. Situated in the Des Moines Fairgrounds, the Iowa State Fair is currently is one of the largest summer attractions in the state of Iowa, attracting over one million visitors from Auguest 9th through the 20th in the year 2018.
The team's involvement as part of The University of Iowa STEM booth aims to provide outreach, educating the public about the importance of synthetic biology on the afternoon of August 18th. Members presented through visual and interactives activities, posters, and pamphlet pertaining to the work with 3-HP. The poster and pamphlet included a brief description about the background of the iGEM team, relevance of synthetic biology, ongoing investigation with 3-HP, and resources to gain further understanding. The activities focused on building bracelets (proteins) from beads of various coloration (amino acids) and many children/parents were able to work collaboratively in building complex proteins.
Midwest iGEM Meetup in Michigan
The Michigan State University iGEM Midwest meetup was a great opportunity for iGEMers around the midwest to get to know each other and discuss the projects. The trip consisted with several activities organized by the host, including a tour of the poisonous plant farms and laboratory that cultivated moss for photosynthesis. The University of Iowa iGEM team presented the project on inducible 3-HP promoter as biosenosr for the use of industrial production of bioplastics. The teams were given feedbacks by experts attending the meetups and other teams to be brought back for mentor discussion. Overall, everyone who atteneded had a pleasant experience and were really grateful for this opportunity to meet other iGEMers.
